Monitoring and Analysing Billboards on the Ring Road in Cairo to Promote Energy Saving behaviour

Billboards in Egypt are one of the means of outdoor advertising widely used on highways for commercial or governmental purposes, and their spread has been observed on the ring road in an unsystematic manner, in addition to the use of very many lighting units in all areas. These billboards result in the consumption of large amounts of electricity, in addition to the non-compliance of some of the commercial institutions that own these billboards with the security and safety requirements for the places where the billboard is installed, as well as the methods of construction and installation, in addition to the resulting visual pollution. Therefore, the research focused on presenting and discussing the current situation of this phenomenon in a specific study area on the ring road. The research methodology in its first part was based on a field visit to the study area in two different time periods, and monitoring all the changes that occurred in the two stages in terms of type, number, and locations of installing the signs, to know the development that took place. The second part compared the electrical energy consumption of the three types of billboards most commonly used on the ring road (the area under study) and an existing residential complex within the study area. By comparing the results, it became clear that billboards on highways consume a huge amount of electrical energy, so an alternative proposal was presented for the lighting methods used to reduce the amount of electrical energy used.